Description of the online game Doomlord

Once upon a time the prospering civilization of Ghalla was destroyed by a terrible Enemy. There was no defence against its might. The Enemy reduced the surface to ashes, eliminating almost all forms of life. The survivors hid in the mountains, and a millennial exile began. From the refugees a society of the Galetki was founded, by those who quite easily adepted to the new environment. They were able to drew soul-energy from monsters and other beings of the Mountain Deep, and use this energy to develop their own body and power. A long time had passed, but the Galetki had never given up hope to reconquer the Surface. In the Mountain Deep they were edged by the fight for survival, and at last there came a day when they moved out to the Surface to challenge the Enemy. There was a long and brutal fight with terrible losses, but the Galetki finally triumphed.

However, during the battle the Enemy infected their minds. The millennial bitterness and suffering have changed into destructive hatred: the surviving Galetki had awesome powers from the gigantic amount of loose soul-energy and started to battle each other to get even more. When a Galetki of such power died, his loose energies often killed his opponent, too, and their interlocking soul-energies created a raging storm, a vortex that reached the contaminated dust clouds covering the sky. The planet couldn't even start to regenerate when its own liberators made the situation worse then ever.

By this time the Galetki called themselves Doomlords. Seeing the destruction, under the pressure of necessity they made an agreement, called the Covenant. When someone wins a battle, he or she can steal an amount of soul-energy but cannot destroy the opposing Doomlord totally. However there were other races returning to the Surface and the last outriders of the Enemy are hiding out somewhere. These creatures will be counted as free prey in the future.

In this game you are one of the Doomlords or Doomladies ruling the planet. Challenge other Doomlords, take their soul-energy, become even more powerful. Whether you will ultimately use your divine power to get rid of the infection of the Enemy, or you will set foot on other worlds to conquer them - it is the secret of the future.

At the beginning of the game you create a character and later you will control his or her fate. One player can control only one character on a world to avoid possible exploits. In the game you can fight other players' characters or computer controlled monsters, you can develop your own character and you may obtain magical items. It is possible to found clans and develop special buildings for them. Playing the game is simple, you will understand it the moment you begin. As you proceed on your way, new possibilities will be available.

You already have a considerable power at your disposal, since your character was one of those who banished the Enemy and triumphed. No one can challenge your might on this world - except the other Doomlords. You will have to extend your power to defeat them. Gain soul-energy either from feeble beings of this planet or from other Doomlords, and develop your skills and abilities:

Strength: The greater stregth you have, the more damage you deal to your opponents in physical fight.
Attack: This ability defines how good a fighter you are and how much chance you have to hit your opponent.
Defense: As the attack increases your chance to hit, the defense decreases the opponents' chance to hit.
Constitution: Your constitution and level will define how much damage you can endure.
IQ: In a magic combat your minds lean against each other. The higher the difference (to your favour), the bigger the chance that your spell makes full damage and does not miss your opponent.
Thaumaturgy: Higher taumaturgy means greater spell damage, and it increases other effects of the spell as well.
Magic: Your magic and level will define the total sum of your spell points.
Level: For each victory you will get experience points - more for stronger opponents. After getting a certain amount of experience points, you will advance a level. Your level influences the amount of your hit points, the learnable spells and the range of usable items. When advancing a level your hit points and spell points will be refilled to their maximum.
hit points: If you take damage, your hit points will be decreased. If your HP is decreased to 1, you must rest, you cannot receive or initiate a new challenge until regaining enough power. Your HPs will regenerate in time. You can never suffer utter destruction, because duels do not go until death.
Spell Points: These are needed to cast spells. If you consume all, you are unable to use magic. Your SPs are regenerating continuously.
Experience Points: You receive these during battles. If you collect enough you will advance in level.
Soul-energy: You can develop your abilities or buy new relics and spells spending soul-energy. Beware, your opponent can take a part of it if you lose a battle!

Doomlords are extremely busy fighting each other, though the planet hides a lot of treasures to find. So many relics of past ages... The soul-hucksters hunt for them tirelessly and if they find one, sell it to a Doomlord as soon as possible.Doomlords are not interested in anything but soul-energy so this became their currency - the valuable essence is closed into soul-crystals to change hands. Even more rare are the ancient stones - unfortunately the secret of their making is lost in the returning. The ancient stones store soul-energy in an unbeleivably concentrated form, so Doomlords can buy special, rare artifacts for them.

The relics bought from the soul-huckster can be used to strengthen your character: you can set your weapon, armor and shield and the unnecessary pieces can be sold to the trader.

It is an open secret, that soul-hucksters are servants of the most powerful Doomlords of the planet. They collect the soul-crystals and ancient stones for their lords. If someone tries to destroy these traders, he or she will take the consequences and face the wrath of these Doomlords.

Doomlords do not rely only on their physical strength but continuously improve their magical arsenal, too. They are constantly searching for magical scrolls to learn new, more powerful spells. Sometimes the soul-hucksters offer these kind of scrolls and the Doomlords are always eager to get them.

As you set the relics to use in the battle, you can also choose a spell to use at the beginning of the fight. Most spells only deal damage, but later you can find some trickier scrolls, too.

Fortunately, with the raging of the Doomlords the world did not sink into total chaos: there are some groups, the so-called Hordes, which do not allow their members to attack each other. Members of the Ruby Horde beleive that physical strength is the most important thing. They are brutal and cruel: most vortexes came into existence after their duels. On the other hand, members of the Emerald Horde think that the way leading to power and immortality is the path of magic. Members of the Sapphire Horde are perfectly controlling the biology of their body: they have outstanding regeneration abilities. Diamond Horde is an assembly of elitist members. They developed the art of soul-energy stealing to perfection, but they often make the error of underestimating their opponents.

At the beginning of the game, at the character creation you must choose a horde. Later you can change your horde, however it is quite expensive. You cannot duel the members of your own Horde, but you can attack anyone else. Members of each Horde have some special abilities.

Ruby: They have a bigger chance to hit in physical combat and they deal more damage.
Emerald: Their spells have a bigger chance to hit and deal more damage. In addition they have more spell points.
Sapphire: They suffer less damage in combat, their HP- and SP-regeneration is quicker and they benefit more from healing effects, too.
Diamond: They get more soul-energy in victorious duels and lose less in case of defeat. Moreover they can buy items from the soul-huckster at a cheaper price.

As a Doomlord you can hunt for other Doomlords or a selection of other creatures. None of the beings of your planet mean a real challenge (except other Doomlords), so you can be quite sure to win; the question is if you find a prey and how much soul-energy can be received. For this you have to use the Hunt menu. You hunt for a time predetermined by you, and until the end of hunting you can't attack Doomlords.

Doomlords mean a more serious challenge than creatures, your victory is not guaranteed at all. If you want to duel a Doomlord or Doomlady, use the Duel button. Here you can choose an opponent.

In duels when you see each other you begin to charge at once and while reaching to close proximity you cast a spell. (Spells can be learnt at level 2 for the members of the Emerald Horde, at level 3 for any other characters.) Then you start the physical combat: you tear each other with your formidable limbs and your weapons. Usually the fight is over quickly: one Doomlord surrenders and the winner takes a part of its soul-energy.

So in the first combat round you use the set attack spell, if you have enough spell points. IQ and taumaturgy decides here. Then comes the physical combat when strength, attack and defense are the important factors. If someone else attacks you, the description of the battle will be sent to you.

You may choose your opponent randomly or challenge a certain Doomlord.

• You cannot attack the same player twice in 8 hours.
• At the beginning of the game you can attack only opponents of the same level, but as your level increases your options widen to a bigger level difference. If you attack a significantly lower level character, you can receive less soul-energy and fewer experience points.
• If someone is attacked and loses, for three hours he or she will lose 20% less soul-energy from the next attack. This percentage accumulates, so after the 5th lost duel he or she would lose nothing (however the computer does not allow such attacks).
• When you attack for the third time in 60 minutes, your attributes count as 10% lower, fourth time 20% lower etc. because of exhaustion.
• No character can be attacked more often than once in 5 minutes.
• If you have fewer hit points than 15% of the maximum level, you cannot attack or be attacked and likewise you cannot attack those of low life.

If you want to attack you may search for a certain player or you can use the opponent finder. Here you can set some conditions: any horde or a certain one, any clan or a certain one, the approximate level of your opponents. If you cannot find an opponent, broaden the search conditions.

You get some information about the find player: name, level, horde, clan, equipment, how much SE can be looted. If the character has been attacked in the last 5 minutes, or the level difference is too big, or the SE penalty would be 100%, then you cannot attack him or her at all.

Anyone can form a clan in the game. If you found one, you can invite other players to join. It is essential that members of a clan must belong to the same horde and one player can be the member of one clan only. The clan can build special buildings useable by the members. The buildings make the members more powerful and also protect them. The soul-energy received in fights can be used for building. Most buildings has the prerequisite of one or more other buildings.

Support: You can support an clan member by transferring a part of your powers to him or her for a while. Then all your ability scores will be reduced by a given value and the supported fellow's abilities will be increased by the same amount if he or she is attacked. This help does not work if he or she attacks. This possibility is most useful when someone harasses an ally and you feel quite safe.

Declaration of War: A clan can declare war on another clan. If two clans are at war there is no soul-energy decrease among their members even after more battles. Moreover you can attack the same player more often (once in an hour). In case of victory the skills and buildings which would reduce the amount of looted soul-energy do not work. A clan can capitulate: in this case the winner gets a part of the soul-energy of the loser.

Peace treaty: Two clans of different hordes can sign a peace treaty. In this case they cannot attack the members of each other. After cancelling a peace treaty the two clans cannot attack each other for 8 more hours.

At level 4 your character can start developing skills. Most of these do not influence battles directly, but offer other useful possibilities. For example if you learn the trapping skill, you can capture and train animals. Development of skills also cost soul-energy, so you must decide how to divide it between abilities, relics, skills and clan buildings.

The peaceful world prefers character advancement instead of looting soul-energy from other players. For this reason, the rules differ a bit.

The SE you can get for a victorious duel is maximalized this way: 10 + 10 * level * maximum(target's victory/loss ratio, 0.2). Example: A defeats B. B is level 12, he have 70 victories and 40 losses. The winner's loot: 10 + 10 * 12 * 70/40 = 220 SE. This value is increased by the diamond horde's bonus and the bonus from the creative affinity skill. Also, if someone defeats a premium player, he gets full SE, but the defeated player loses only 10% of it. If a premium player loses when he attacks, he loses only 20% of the usual SE. So, if in the above example, B is a premium player, he loses only 22 SE.

If you are not resting, you HP and SP is regeneration 33% faster than on other worlds (when resting, the speed is the same as on other worlds).

A clan may start only 3 wars at once instead of 5. The soul energy acquired from the defeated clan's soul-well (15-30%) gets a multiplier, which is the win/loss ratio of the loser, but minimum 0.2. The defeated clan loses only half of the soul-energy the victor gets in case the war lasted for at least 3 days. Example: Clan A defeats clan B. Their strength is about the same. Soul-well of clan B is 20,000. On normal worlds, B would lose 6000 from it's soul well, and A would gain the same amount. Here, it works this way: let's suppose that B has 10 victories and 20 losses. In this case, A would get 3000 SE, and B would lose 1500. If B capitulates immediately, they lose 3000. If B would have 20 victories and 10 losses, then A would gain 12000, and B would lose 6000. [Don't worry, clan wars are normally not more complicated than playing a game of poker.]